Artifact 5: 

The potato famine began in the mid-1800’s and was one of the worst diseases to ever take over the Irish. For one reason or another in Ireland during that time the potato was the only food available. The potato famine all started when one single pant caught a disease and quickly spread throughout the other plants which were consumed by humans. It was a single-celled pathogen that affected the potato plants. The only way to try and avoid the disease was to migrate to other parts of the world. But the factors that played into causing this disease is that the potato was the only food to eat so when it got infected it wasn’t like people could just eating it and focuse their attention to somewhere else for food. 

The potato famine killed about 1 million people before it could be stopped. The population of Ireland quickly declined due to the potato famine, from people dyeing and people leaving to avoid it. There are ways for the disease to be killed off. One-way is to try and cure the plants so they don’t get the disease or kill the disease if a plant already has it. One negative result from that is the disease can adapt so the “cure” does not affect it. Another way is to just stop eating the potatoes and let the disease run its course and hopefully die out. There are down falls for trying to modify the plants, so they can be free from the disease. It could still make the plant deadly for a while to humans or anything that eats the plant. But hopefully in the long run for doing that is that humans can once again eat the plant and do not have to worry every time they try and enjoy a delicious potato.